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Playtest: Conan 2d20 - To Race the Thunder

Started by crkrueger, March 03, 2016, 06:49:26 PM

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crkrueger

Quote from: Enlightened;884028The main thing that has been keeping me from pulling the trigger on backing the Kickstarter is that the Momentum/Doom economy "looks" really frickin' annoying to be constantly tracking with pretty much every single action (or close to it, it seems).

Did you not find it to be an annoying distraction? Is it not as "in-yer-face" at it seems it would be?

I am unfortunately in the middle of an overseas move and won't be able to actaully play the Quickstart adventure myself to see before the Kickstarter ends.

We went into it knowing it was going to be a Point-Economy system, and just played it for what it was.  Doing that, it wasn't as "in-yer-face" as we thought it would be.  At the same time, doing that for every game - no.  This is not my table's weekly RPG system we're going to be doing steadily for the next year.  However, it is something we will be doing every once in a while.

As a DM(DoomMaster, my players term), I kind of enjoyed the process, the Doom wasn't onerous for me to plan for and use, and as far as adventures go, this one due to it's nature focuses things, so it was pretty easy to keep track of where I wanted to go with the Doom.  My players enjoyed it, but it was more in their face as players then in mine as DM from their responses.

So yeah, it really isn't as bad as it looks, at least IMO and I'm pretty allergic to that type of mechanic.  I'll give a more specific look at some of the Pool stuff in my answer to RosenMcStern in a few.
Even the the "cutting edge" storygamers for all their talk of narrative, plot, and drama are fucking obsessed with the god damned rules they use. - Estar

Yes, Sean Connery\'s thumb does indeed do megadamage. - Spinachcat

Isuldur is a badass because he stopped Sauron with a broken sword, but Iluvatar is the badass because he stopped Sauron with a hobbit. -Malleus Arianorum

"Tangency Edition" D&D would have no classes or races, but 17 genders to choose from. -TristramEvans

crkrueger

#31
Quote from: RosenMcStern;884001On a more serious level... @CRKrueger, can you tell us if, in your opinion, the parts of the Momentum/Doom mechanics that leverage OOC decisions or produce OOC considerations (pay Doom to parry, use Fortune that comes froom good RP to add dice, etc.) could be ablated in favour of those parts that result exclusively from intra-diagetic reasons (generating momentum because of a very good performance in the previous actions, surprise, etc. etc.)?

It sounds like the game was, in the end, acceptable to the group, except for the fact that some elements sounded artificial. I would like to understand if everything in the Momentum/Doom mechanics produced that "detachment" feeling that you do not like.
I have a player with very bad vision, and congenital cataracts.  As a result, I always make custom charsheets, and for all the players I included a page listing all the "spends" they can make.  So lets look at them:

Combat Momentum Uses
  • Bonus Damage(1): A character can increase the damage inflicted by a successful attack, regardless of the type of attack. Each Momentum spent adds +1 damage.
  • Confidence(1): The character gains  1 Morale Soak per Momentum spent (maximum  4) until the start of his next turn.
  • Disarm(2/3): One weapon held by the target is knocked away and falls to the ground within Reach. This costs 2 points of Momentum if the target is holding the weapon in one hand or 3 Momentum if the weapon is braced or held in two hands.
  • Penetration(1): The damage inflicted by the current attack ignores an amount of Soak equal to twice the Momentum spent.
  • Re-roll Damage(1): The player may re-roll any number of damage dice from the current attack, 1 per Momentum spent.
  • Second Wind(1): The character recovers 1 point of Vigor or Resolve for each Momentum spent.
  • Secondary Target(1): A second target within Reach of the primary target is also affected by the attack, and suffers half the attack's damage, rounding down.
  • Swift Action(2): The character gains an additional Standard Action, increasing the difficulty by one step on any skill test that action requires. This may only be done once per round.
  • Withdraw(1): The character leaves the Reach of an enemy, without triggering any Retaliate Reactions.
Other Momentum Uses
  • Speed(1): Perform a task in half the normal time.
  • Interference(1): Increase an opponent's skill test difficulty by +1.
  • Awareness(1): Ask the gamemaster a pertinent question about the situation, the characters present, or something else that the player character might be able to discern with that skill test.
Fortune Uses
  • Bonus Die: Add an extra d20 to a skill test, up to the maximum of three additional d20s. The extra die is treated as having automatically rolled a 1.
  • Bonus Action: Perform an additional Standard Action on your turn.
  • Second Wind: Recover all lost Vigor or Resolve (choose one).
  • Overcome Weakness: Ignore effects of Wounds or Trauma (choose one) until the end of the current scene.
  • Story Declaration: Introduce a fact or add a detail to the current scene. The gamemaster may veto some story declarations, or require multiple Fortune points for particularly large or significant declarations.
So looking at these, a few points pop out.
1. With Momentum, there's very few things that you couldn't view from an IC/setting viewpoint, as part of "doing something really well and psyching yourself and others up to do well".
2. Fortune, however, is much more powerful, as it guarantees success, not to mention allows direct Narrative Editing and thus it is much more of a Player mechanic as opposed to a Character mechanic.

The ways to keep the system as character-facing as possible, based on my player's input, would possibly be to...
  • Eliminate the "Buying Dice by Giving Doom" aspect.  Then there's no "should I" thought involved.  Any stuff the PCs spend is generated by their own success.
  • Get rid of Mobs except as literal collectives like a School of Piranhas or Pit of Snakes.
  • Make Momentum singular, no pool or cross spends (maybe a little hardcore).
  • Be very careful with the Awareness Momentum spend.
  • Get rid of Fortune entirely, it's too powerful to be fully IC.
  • Make a range system.

So in essence, make the game a dual point system that neither side ever "banks".  Now this is going to cause the GM a bit of work because if I want NPCs to do certain things, I must spend Doom.  I also have to worry about how to do Reactions.

A simpler and less hardcore way to do it would be to get rid of Fortune, keep Momentum as is with a PC bank that erodes and Doom as a NPC bank that doesn't erode.  However, without the "buying dice for Doom mechanic" you're going to end up having entire fights without spending any Doom as a GM no matter how well you're doing because you're going to want a Shaman to actually be casting spells at some point.

There's no way to fully make this game "intra-diegetic" as I see it without some serious reconstruction.  The best you're gonna do is mitigate it to taste.

Quote from: RosenMcStern;884001Also, how much in-combat movement did take place? Were these (in)famous "zones" used only to determine range, or did you use them for movement, too?
They weren't "Epic Fail", mainly because I pretty much stopped using them after the Bridge fight and the players just declared intent, and I told them how far they ran or how difficult the shot was.  From discussions we've been having, Zones were more of a "in your face" mechanic than even Fortune points were*, so I did without them, made the forest a little more encroaching then it probably would be, and we just had fun without them.
Spoiler
Rant: I'll never understand why game designers somehow think moving away from the method of spatial relationships we start internalizing at birth and start putting name to as soon as we start learning language is going to help visualize anything.  It's not even a story-telling tool, as it doesn't even help tell a story unless by telling a story you mean slapping in you in the face and saying "Hey Dude, you're in a fucking Story."  My "narrative guy" was right, I think, it's a wargame/boardgame abstraction to hang metadata tags on that gets used also for movement and range because...it's there; and someone thinks as soon as we say "50 yards/meters away" people are going to start bouncing figures down the map like Monopoly pieces, which I've never seen anyone do outside a 3.5e/4e game.  Whew, ok rant over. :D

*With one exception.  One of my players thought Fortune was the most disruptive of all the mechanics.  He couldn't shake the feeling that every time he spent one, his character should say 'Die you dog, I'm the Protagonist here!" or something to that effect.

So, in general, my players enjoyed the system, but they didn't enjoy it the same way they would enjoy RQ6/Mythras.  Somewhere inbetween RQ6/Mythras and "Necromunda with every option turned on".
Even the the "cutting edge" storygamers for all their talk of narrative, plot, and drama are fucking obsessed with the god damned rules they use. - Estar

Yes, Sean Connery\'s thumb does indeed do megadamage. - Spinachcat

Isuldur is a badass because he stopped Sauron with a broken sword, but Iluvatar is the badass because he stopped Sauron with a hobbit. -Malleus Arianorum

"Tangency Edition" D&D would have no classes or races, but 17 genders to choose from. -TristramEvans

RosenMcStern

Quote from: CRKrueger;884049There's no way to fully make this game "intra-diegetic" as I see it without some serious reconstruction.  The best you're gonna do is mitigate it to taste.

Very interesting point of view. I hope the devs will take your feedback into account. Despite the initial rants, you are providing them some concrete facts. There is a reason why I say that I listen to positive comments once and to negative ones thrice, and you have just shown what it is.

On a side note, my friend Claudio will be happy to know that usage of his "intra-diagetic" term is spreading. :D

QuoteRant: I'll never understand why game designers somehow think moving away from the method of spatial relationships we start internalizing at birth and start putting name to as soon as we start learning language is going to help visualize anything.

It is not a problem of helping you visualize anything. It is mainly a matter of helping the GM fudge distances without needing to be precise to the metre/yard. The big problem is when you force players who are comfortable with measurements to think in terms of zones without any reference to real world measurements, that is, you do not explain what "one zone" is equivalent to in yards, nor allow to use plain measures instead of zones.
Paolo Guccione
Alephtar Games

crkrueger

Quote from: RosenMcStern;884077It is not a problem of helping you visualize anything. It is mainly a matter of helping the GM fudge distances without needing to be precise to the metre/yard. The big problem is when you force players who are comfortable with measurements to think in terms of zones without any reference to real world measurements, that is, you do not explain what "one zone" is equivalent to in yards, nor allow to use plain measures instead of zones.

Bingo, and that's the problem, the zones in 2d20 have no equivalent in yards or anything else for that matter.

If you say zones are for storytelling, then you use them to hang metadata tags on that can be invoked by either side telling a story.  Boom, finito.

But then you also want to have them be sized to fit those different story-descriptive areas, and then also use them as a measurement of movement over time, as well as distance of ranged weapons, when the literal size of those zones varies from scene to scene, then now I have to ignore and throw out my entire human experience related to distance, time and speed, and now learn an entire new way of internalizing "The Art of Using Variable Size MetaTag Zones to determine Distance and Speed."  

That's being too clever for your own good, for no benefit at all, because real numbers in roleplaying have absolutely nothing to do with boardgames, but "weird, new ways of abstractly looking at real life things specifically for one game" is exactly what boardgames do, in fact Eurogames are kind of known for it.
Even the the "cutting edge" storygamers for all their talk of narrative, plot, and drama are fucking obsessed with the god damned rules they use. - Estar

Yes, Sean Connery\'s thumb does indeed do megadamage. - Spinachcat

Isuldur is a badass because he stopped Sauron with a broken sword, but Iluvatar is the badass because he stopped Sauron with a hobbit. -Malleus Arianorum

"Tangency Edition" D&D would have no classes or races, but 17 genders to choose from. -TristramEvans

nDervish

Quote from: CRKrueger;884049Rant: I'll never understand why game designers somehow think moving away from the method of spatial relationships we start internalizing at birth and start putting name to as soon as we start learning language is going to help visualize anything.

I think you overstate this point, or at least overstate its universality.  When I'm sitting on my couch and I think about the location of the refrigerator, I naturally think of it as "in the kitchen" (a zone), not "5 meters away" (a distance).  Indeed, I know the "zone" immediately and intuitively, but had to stop and consider the distance several times before deciding to just say "five" as a nice, round number, even though it's probably not all that accurate.

And beyond the kitchen are "the sandpit with the slide", "the swing", "a section of footpath", and "the sandpit by the pizza place", all of which are "zones" of varying sizes and complexity, but that's the model of spatial relationships which comes to me intuitively.  I don't even want to try to put numbers to the distances involved.

Jason D

It would be actually quite helpful if people could post excerpts/instances from REH where exact distances and precise spatial relationships were critical to the plot.

I'm in the process of reviewing the core rules and pointing out areas in the rules that could be clarified or refined, and the concept of zones versus actual distances is one of those things I'd like to make sure works.

RosenMcStern

Quote from: CRKrueger;884083Bingo, and that's the problem, the zones in 2d20 have no equivalent in yards or anything else for that matter.

In my personal book, this is not a good idea. The exact size of a zone may vary according to the situation, but there should be a way to quickly estimate how many zones away you are if you know the distance in metres/yards, or to estimate how many metres/yards if you know how many zones. But I am not Modiphius.

That said, I fade away from this interesting discussion. Jason has asked for more feedback, it would be a good idea to provide him some. He is one of those (few?) authors who actually listen.
Paolo Guccione
Alephtar Games

crkrueger

You're right Jason, Howard didn't make Conan an archer.  

Conan also never used a Pike as I recall, but somehow Reach made it into the game.  

In which Howard Story did the plot focus on Reach...or, is it in there because the concept actually exists and applies to combat.

Conan killed Thak the Ape-man with a poniard IIRC, so obviously all weapons are lethal in the hands of a protagonist, so why have different weapon types? Conan never showed any particular fear of a specific weapon, as a result, none of Howard's Conan plots relied on weapon damage, so why have different weapon damages?

See where the plot argument goes and what it gets you?  Plus, I never said that just calling a distance "40 yards" helps or aids plot or story in any way.

Since I obviously don't get it, please tell me how zones as holders of three different meanings (metadata tags, ranges, movement speeds) help Plot and Story specifically in a way that, say "40 yards" does not.  I'm missing the storytelling capability of Zones outside of "descriptive things you can hang rules on".
Even the the "cutting edge" storygamers for all their talk of narrative, plot, and drama are fucking obsessed with the god damned rules they use. - Estar

Yes, Sean Connery\'s thumb does indeed do megadamage. - Spinachcat

Isuldur is a badass because he stopped Sauron with a broken sword, but Iluvatar is the badass because he stopped Sauron with a hobbit. -Malleus Arianorum

"Tangency Edition" D&D would have no classes or races, but 17 genders to choose from. -TristramEvans

crkrueger

Quote from: RosenMcStern;884143That said, I fade away from this interesting discussion. Jason has asked for more feedback, it would be a good idea to provide him some. He is one of those (few?) authors who actually listen.

Quote from: Jason D;884135I'm in the process of reviewing the core rules and pointing out areas in the rules that could be clarified or refined, and the concept of zones versus actual distances is one of those things I'd like to make sure works.

Constructive feedback example coming...
Even the the "cutting edge" storygamers for all their talk of narrative, plot, and drama are fucking obsessed with the god damned rules they use. - Estar

Yes, Sean Connery\'s thumb does indeed do megadamage. - Spinachcat

Isuldur is a badass because he stopped Sauron with a broken sword, but Iluvatar is the badass because he stopped Sauron with a hobbit. -Malleus Arianorum

"Tangency Edition" D&D would have no classes or races, but 17 genders to choose from. -TristramEvans

Madprofessor

QuoteOriginally Posted by Jason D
It would be actually quite helpful if people could post excerpts/instances from REH where exact distances and precise spatial relationships were critical to the plot.

I'm in the process of reviewing the core rules and pointing out areas in the rules that could be clarified or refined, and the concept of zones versus actual distances is one of those things I'd like to make sure works.

I'd like to help (rather than being a constant pain), but I'm not quite sure what you are getting at.  

It's likely rare that statements of distance drive the plot of REH's stories.  I am more confident that statements about distance are sometimes used to drive or elaborate on action.

I don't know if you are asking for examples of the use of words like "feet" or "miles" used in common English for distance, or just for any measure of distance.  I don't know if REH used such common terms or avoided them, without looking.  Of course, I do know that REH never made any statements about zones to drive the plot, or for anything else. So comparing "the concept of zones vs actual distances" by referencing the sources seems an odd comparison.  

I am guessing that he most often would use somewhat purple prose to describe distance: "a finger's breadth," or "an endless expanse."  If REH says "he was just outside of bowshot," or "it was seven leagues across open desert" for example, whether it drives the plot or not, how does that help you decide if zones or distances work better?  

In any case, I'd be happy to skim/comb through some stories to help and give constructive feedback.  It's just not quite clear what you are looking for.

crkrueger

#40
Quote from: Jason D;884135I'm in the process of reviewing the core rules and pointing out areas in the rules that could be clarified or refined, and the concept of zones versus actual distances is one of those things I'd like to make sure works.

Ok, here's some feedback.  A North-South road through a forest, trees on each side.
If you actually were on that road, what's one of the first things you'd want to know? - How far away are the trees, right?  But let's assume I just lay down a cool drawing at the table and no one actually asks how far.

Well, here's a very uncool drawing I slapped together in Paint showing the zones laid out by Terrain type.  We have a number of Picts, Adelstan, Othwald, Lucina, and Kerim Shah.  Why Kerim Shah?  Because Howard specifically told us "Kerim Shah had unslung the powerful Turanian bow that killed at five hundred paces, and the Irakzai looked to their own lighter and less lethal bows." and Modiphius uses this quote. (Although I'm sure someone has caught by now that's it's from People of the Black Circle and not Hour of the Dragon.)

EXAMPLE ONE
So, lets assume the setup looks like this, with the Zones only used to hold Terrain Mods.
Spoiler

Now the first problem I see is that because I'm basing them on terrain, I have rather long rectangles.  I should be obviously breaking those down into Northern, Central, and Southern Zones, but again, without any reference point as to actual distances, how do we have that conversation?

In any case, we live with it for now...
Lucina has a Sling, Close Range which means her Difficulties for the different Picts are:
Pict 1 - D2 (one zone away adds +1 Difficulty)
Pict 2 - D2 (one zone away adds +1 Difficulty)
Pict 3 - D1 (same zone doesn't affect Difficulty)
Pict 4 - D3 (two zones away adds +2 Difficulty)
Pict 5 - D3 (two zones away adds +2 Difficulty)
Pict 6 - D4 (three zones away adds +3 Difficulty)

Adelstan has a Light Crossbow, Medium Range, which means his Difficulties for the Picts are...
Pict 1 - D2
Pict 2 - D2
Pict 3 - D1
Pict 4 - D1
Pict 5 - D1
Pict 6 - D2

Othwald is using Maeve's War Bow, Long Range, which means his Difficulties for the Picts are...
Pict 1 - D2
Pict 2 - D2
Pict 3 - D1
Pict 4 - D3 (because this Pict is in Close range, and Long is the optimal range, Othwald is actually at a penalty.)
Pict 5 - D3 (ditto)
Pict 6 - D2

The Mighty Kerim Shah doesn't even string his bow, because obviously we have issues.  Due to the very long zones, ranges do not match what can be easily seen with the eye. Lucina can hit P3 easier even though he's like way farther.  So now I have to throw in some zonelines to make this better represented.

EXAMPLE TWO
Spoiler
Note: We're kinda getting a grid at this point.  Also, now I have to worry about counting diagonals...

Lucina - Sling, Close Range:
Pict 1 - D2 (one zone away adds +1 Difficulty, but he's twice as far at least as P2 and on a diagonal, so...)
Pict 2 - D2 (one zone away adds +1 Difficulty)
Pict 3 - D3 (two zones away adds +2 Difficulty)
Pict 4 - D3/D4 (depends on counting diagonals)
Pict 5 - D3/D4 (depends on counting diagonals)
Pict 6 - D4/D5 (depends on counting diagonals)

I could go through Adelstan and Othwald, but I think the Diagonal point is made.
To be honest, I'd really like someone to tell me how this is in any way supposed to be faster then "you're 20 yards from that guy".

Ok, so now I throw some other stuff into the mix and the Mighty Kerim Shah might get involved.  I add a section of Mud on the east edge of the clearing near the trees, and now we have a ditch going all the way along the west side of the road.

EXAMPLE THREE
Spoiler

Again, not going to run through everything, but will point out some things...
Lucina - Sling, Close Range:
Pict 1, 2, 3 will be unchanged.  Pict 4 and and Pict 5 will now be affected because there is a new zone in the way (a zone designed to affect movement) and Pict 6 will be affected because now there are two new zones in the way.
Pict 4 - D4/D5 (depends on counting diagonals)
Pict 5 - D4/D5 (depends on counting diagonals)
Pict 6 - D5/D6 (depends on counting diagonals)This one might not even be possible.

For Adelstan, we'll focus on only one shot, Pict 3
Adelstan has a Medium Range weapon so optimum for him is one zone away.
Pict 3 without Ditch - D1
Pict 3 with Ditch - D2
Again, the Ditch makes firing over it worse.

For the Mighty Kerim Shah, his weapon is best at Extreme Range (it's a 500 pace bow), so for him, optimum is 3 zones away.
Pict 1 without Ditch - D2
Pict 1 with Ditch - D1
Pict 6 without Mud - D2
Pict 6 with Mud - D1
Kerim Shah shoots better over the Ditch and Mud while everyone else shoots worse (of course that depends on whether the Ditch or Mud gets them closer to optimum range or not.)

In RQ6
  • Everyone already knows what their ranges for their weapons are, and they know how fast they can move.  I could use a full-blown map, or just put minis down and jot ranges.  i can guarantee you, no one is going to be Monopoly Hopping.
  • The Ditch I say "You can spend an AP to cross or make a Normal Athletics test to jump over without spending one."
  • The Mud I say "You must spend an AP to cross, and make a difficult Athletics test or fall down."
Done.

Again, I just don't see how having these abstracted units, which must be internalized as a rule, containing the definitions of...
1. Terrain difficulty or special effects.
2. Movement and
3. Range
...gets you any speed at all, or puts rules out of the way to get on with the story.

Zones as special effect areas...sure, they work just fine, I'll give you that one.  Hell, because most of the time they are terrain factors, I'll even give you that most of the time they work for movement (as long as you keep them the same size roughly).  Add in the ranges and now you get to the point where you're having to design HARD to get them to where at least one, if not two of those definitions break (ie. don't make sense and aren't modeled well.)

EDIT: Now I can assume I'll get told to make the three West Zones Clearing (Ditch) instead of Clearing (Normal) and the two Northernmost Zones Clearing (Mud) instead of Clearing (Normal) and that's how I'm supposed to use them...Ok, you have a point, but, I doubt that it would be very hard to find a Terrain Mod you couldn't just apply to a whole Zone without making a Sub-Zone and we're back to ranged issues.

Based on what I'm seeing as far as the Tiles go, how the adventure goes, I don't think Maximum Ranged weapon fire is really what was envisioned here, which is kind of odd in a setting known partly for its horse archers and massive bows.
Even the the "cutting edge" storygamers for all their talk of narrative, plot, and drama are fucking obsessed with the god damned rules they use. - Estar

Yes, Sean Connery\'s thumb does indeed do megadamage. - Spinachcat

Isuldur is a badass because he stopped Sauron with a broken sword, but Iluvatar is the badass because he stopped Sauron with a hobbit. -Malleus Arianorum

"Tangency Edition" D&D would have no classes or races, but 17 genders to choose from. -TristramEvans

Spinachcat

Aargh, the issues with this 2D20 system just keep getting more wonky.

And I like abstract ranges.

CRK, great job...in screwing with my brain (but your breakdown made sense, just cause D2 SAN loss).

Madprofessor

QuoteOriginally Posted by CRKrueger
To be honest, I'd really like someone to tell me how this is in any way supposed to be faster then "you're 20 yards from that guy".

In a nutshell, this!

QuoteEDIT: Now I can assume I'll get told to make the three West Zones Clearing (Ditch) instead of Clearing (Normal) and the two Northernmost Zones Clearing (Mud) instead of Clearing (Normal) and that's how I'm supposed to use them...Ok, you have a point, but, I doubt that it would be very hard to find a Terrain Mod you couldn't just apply to a whole Zone without making a Sub-Zone and we're back to ranged issues.

Even if this was posited as a counter-argument it would simply be saying "in any given situation there is a right way to do zones and a lot of wrong ways."

Anon Adderlan

In the spirit of useful feedback, what exactly is set in stone at this point and what's still open to revision?

Quote from: CRKrueger;883372I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for that meddling Anon. :rolleyes:

I completely admit I am impressed (and baffled) at how wrong I was, especially since I agree with most of the suggestions you've presented here. Now if only we can avoid any use of Forge theory terms I think we're good.

Quote from: Madprofessor;883282Of course I know "the plural of anecdote is not data," nor was I trying to say that my experience was in anyway universal or representative of the whole.  I understand and agree that theater of the mind and squares and minis are both valid approaches practiced by many.  I was trying to contribute to the conversation by saying zones have more in common with theater of the mind than they do with squares and minis - adding to the point made by Chris. I also tried to say that zones were awkward for me without implying that they were awkward in general.  Clearly I failed at that.  I am not accusing the game of being too anything, nor am I claiming that my experience is anything more than my experience.

People want to talk about how the game may or may not work for them, or how to use it.  It's not a perfect fit for everyone, but if people say "wow, I'm not sure how I can make that work" or "this is outside of my experience or comfort zone" that doesn't mean their attacking it or accusing the game of falling into some artificial categorization. I'm not on your side of the fence, but I have no idea why you are put off.  From this side of the fence, you being put off looks like a knee-jerk reaction to imaginary accusations.

You know.  I don't even want to go here.  I just want to talk about the game without being told that all of my thoughts are either subjective and meaningless or that I am attacking something.

So say we all.

Quote from: Jason D;883276Anything is debatable,

Yes, but is everything equally justifiable? At what point do you just say an element is a matter of taste and any feedback is 'debatable'?

Quote from: Jason D;883276I think it's safe to say that positional combat based on a hex or square grid is where tabletop roleplaying gaming began and continues to be the dominant mode of play is just as "traditional" as the "theater of the mind" approach. There can be two different long-held traditions that are utterly opposed to one another.

Yes, but creating a product that supports two different long-held traditions that are utterly opposed to one another is an entirely different matter.

The current design implies miniatures. The tiles representing physical scenes imply miniatures and real world metrics. All the playtest videos released feature miniatures. Anyone assuming that using miniatures is not intended is going to have to ignore much of what you've presented. And yet the current design is explicit in its use of abstract distances, which is dissonant with both how you've implied miniatures should be used, and how people have traditionally used them (that is, to account for real world metrics).

Quote from: Jason D;883276It's important to remember that personal preferences and experience, while completely valid, are not always representative of the audience as a whole. An old producer I worked with would always hit me with that "The plural of anecdote is not data" saying.

No, but you need to have a particular audience in mind whose preferences and experience you're targeting before you even begin to design. So who is that audience? And the biggest problem with feedback for things like RPGs is being able to tell the difference between practical mechanical issues and matters of personal taste and culture, which sometimes means you need to treat anecdote as data.

Quote from: Jason D;883276From this side of the fence, it is somewhat off-putting to have the game accused of simultaneously being too storygamey and too boardgamey in the very same thread.

'storygamey' and 'boardgamey' are meaningless terms concealing what people are actually trying to say, so you need to engage on the level beyond that. Feedback is a form of design itself, and most do not think like designers when giving feedback on entertainment products.

Quote from: CRKrueger;8832892. "Wounds and Trauma being "5" for all PCs is arbitrary, tie it to something so some have more than others."
Individual differences are expressed through Vigor and Resolve, but I can see the argument.

This is the only recommendation I wholeheartedly disagree with. Why don't the players feel this difference is sufficiently expressed in Vigor/Resolve?

Quote from: Jason D;884135It would be actually quite helpful if people could post excerpts/instances from REH where exact distances and precise spatial relationships were critical to the plot.

They're not, which is why it's important to not draw attention to them by using metrics people are not familiar with. Focus is always drawn to the unfamiliar, so any thematically irrelevant elements you do not want to draw attention to should be as familiar as possible.

Quote from: CRKrueger;884162In which Howard Story did the plot focus on Reach...or, is it in there because the concept actually exists and applies to combat.

Conan killed Thak the Ape-man with a poniard IIRC, so obviously all weapons are lethal in the hands of a protagonist, so why have different weapon types? Conan never showed any particular fear of a specific weapon, as a result, none of Howard's Conan plots relied on weapon damage, so why have different weapon damages?

See where the plot argument goes and what it gets you?  Plus, I never said that just calling a distance "40 yards" helps or aids plot or story in any way.

Since I obviously don't get it, please tell me how zones as holders of three different meanings (metadata tags, ranges, movement speeds) help Plot and Story specifically in a way that, say "40 yards" does not.  I'm missing the storytelling capability of Zones outside of "descriptive things you can hang rules on".

Weird. I have to agree with this 100%.

Quote from: CRKrueger;883137For all the fury of spending Doom, the game isn't all that deadly really.

Which has gotten me thinking: What would happen if players took max Doom for every roll? What's actually keeping them from doing so? What if the GM had an unlimited amount of Doom? Would any of this make a meaningful mechanical impact? Would any of this make a meaningful social (blame, resentment, retaliation, etc) impact? Because while Fate and Cortex+ have controlled economies with clear results, the one in 2D20 is spammable with much more opaque results.

So has this been tested? Has anyone run the game at its highest difficulty setting just to see if anything would break or make any difference at all? I'd do it, but this is one of those things where knowing what's being tested messes with the results, and it's the social effects I'm really curious about.

crkrueger

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;884393In the spirit of useful feedback, what exactly is set in stone at this point and what's still open to revision?
Onviously Jason needs to answer that, but here's my experience with feedback. A year ago, when Jason was the newly announced author of the Nordheimr book, but hadn't really even dug into the rules much, the first playtest went up, I and many others brought a lot of the exact same issues to light on the forums and on G+.  The response from Nathan was "please play the Playtest for what it is, not what it should be."  Then there were threads about "Would you like X, what do you think of Y?" as far as hit locations, reach, weapons, damage etc... but not much about the core mechanics of Doom, Fortune, Momentum, Zones, lack of ranges, etc...  The only real significant play revision that I saw amongst the various playtests was that Dread got taken out.  Many suggestions of adding in optional rules for actual ranges weren't really answered with finality one way or the other.

I was done with this and had written it off as another tragic case of "Classic IP turned into Narrative Shitshow" until I saw that Jason had been made line editor, and heard to what extent Shanks was involved.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;884393This is the only recommendation I wholeheartedly disagree with. Why don't the players feel this difference is sufficiently expressed in Vigor/Resolve?
You can recover Vigor/Resolve by taking a Second Wind, which means they are more fatigue/stamina/loss of awareness of surroundings, where as Wounds are actual "Meat" and in the following picture, the guy on the right might take a little more real killin' then the girl on the left.

Plus 5pts of damage is a Wound (2 if from a battleaxe) regardless of whether Vigor is depleted or not.

So Vigor doesn't quite pass muster as accounting for all the difference between Taylor Swift and The Undertaker when it comes to taking damage.  I guess it just makes it really obvious that the Wound number is really more of a metric of how high a level you are on the Dramatic Personae list.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;884393They're not, which is why it's important to not draw attention to them by using metrics people are not familiar with. Focus is always drawn to the unfamiliar, so any thematically irrelevant elements you do not want to draw attention to should be as familiar as possible.
Agreed, learning a new way of interpreting spatial relationships doesn't seem as a mechanic to "get out of the way".  It gets in your face and forces you to come to grips with it, or you just for the most part ignore it.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;884393Which has gotten me thinking: What would happen if players took max Doom for every roll? What's actually keeping them from doing so? What if the GM had an unlimited amount of Doom? Would any of this make a meaningful mechanical impact? Would any of this make a meaningful social (blame, resentment, retaliation, etc) impact? Because while Fate and Cortex+ have controlled economies with clear results, the one in 2D20 is spammable with much more opaque results.

So has this been tested? Has anyone run the game at its highest difficulty setting just to see if anything would break or make any difference at all? I'd do it, but this is one of those things where knowing what's being tested messes with the results, and it's the social effects I'm really curious about.

That's an interesting point.  Maybe Skywalker is right on this issue and at this point the Forced Competition insight might rear it's head.

I mean if the choice to use Doom Dice is the player deciding the character is going to do better than normal, ie. "choosing to be awesome"(to stay away from jargon), then the DM can completely thwart this by simply taking those Doom and throwing them immediately into the NPC's defense, thus denying the choice to be awesome.  

If the GM doesn't deny that choice to be awesome, then you've just given him the ability to "choose to be deadly" probably at the worst damn time.

It seems like it really is a competitive Howard storytelling game in that sense.  Even if the players choose to Doomstarve the DM buy not buying dice, every time his own NPCs generate extra successes the DM can "cheat" by just having them be normal successes and bank the Doom for later.  Everyone really has to buy into the mechanics and flow (but you kind of need to do that with any metapoint economy).
Even the the "cutting edge" storygamers for all their talk of narrative, plot, and drama are fucking obsessed with the god damned rules they use. - Estar

Yes, Sean Connery\'s thumb does indeed do megadamage. - Spinachcat

Isuldur is a badass because he stopped Sauron with a broken sword, but Iluvatar is the badass because he stopped Sauron with a hobbit. -Malleus Arianorum

"Tangency Edition" D&D would have no classes or races, but 17 genders to choose from. -TristramEvans